When you hit Backup in Shrink you get a pop up with 5 tabs, click on burn settings. Burn speed is default at maximum but you can select a lower speed. In Recode after you import a dvd and click next it says write speed. Again the defaut is max just lower the speed. I don't burn movies higher than 8x. The faster you burn the more chance for errors

Thanks Ppower. I just did another burn with Recode2 and selected a slower option. But it only offered 2x, 2.4X or maximum as the drop down box three list selectable alternatives. I chose 2.4x and it burnt at 4x. Is there any way to manipulate/force Shrink/Recode to burn at 8x, or is it just select either 2.4x or maximum and accept what you get? Love this Taiyo Yuden media.

Before opening the Burn Settings tab, make sure your blank media is in your burner and spun up. Otherwise you are just given a choice of the default speed settings which get ignored once the media is present. This works when you have burning with Nero enabled.

BTW I just let the thing burn at 12X. I'm using the same TY media and a Pioneer 109 burner. Of course I have a careless attitude so you may want to slow your burns down. Listen to Ppower!

Will try your suggestion fasfrank. Quality appears identical irrespective of burn speed. No coasters yet, though if minor errors are present in the 12x burns only a full length viewing will tell.
No problems with either +/-R, both 8X TY.

Ppower. The burn part is certainly the quickest aspect of the process, so I'm happy enough with a 4x burn *if* it truly makes any difference to reliability or media longevity. Though not anal about it, naturally enough I'd like to burn at 8x considering the media and burner are up to it.

There has always been a debate about burn speed. When 4X was the fastest, folks insisted on 2X or 2.4X burn speeds. Probably a good idea.
If you have been burning awhile then experience will guide you on what you can burn at. Obviously if you can tell the difference in quality from burning at a higher speed, then you ought to slow it down some. I see no difference in my 12X burns compared to my 8X or 4X burns so I burn at 12X with these discs. If I come across a problem, I'll slow it down.

i agree entirely w/ fasfrank, i have many 8x dvd-/+ TY media and after about 6 months of burning ONLY at 4x, i have decided to take fasfrank's lead in attitude and just max it out. i too have had no problems with 12x burning, i have compared the entire movie watched the whole way till the end without noticable difference in movie quality, but, this again is due to great TY media and it's quality i suppose.

i can do this with both my Pioneer dvr-109 as well as my Sony Dru-710a, not entirely sure if you burn solely on your Pioneer 109 too, but, since about a month ago, all my burns have been @ 8x or higher~
i use shrink primarily for everything w/ anydvd in background for any of the encryption problems that might arise.

hope that helps~ i know others will argue with me that 4x or 2.4x is the highest they SHOULD go, ok, whatever floats your boat; this IS TY media we talking about here, and i personally believe that with this high quality media, they are more forgiving than others in terms of high speed burning. they rate it at 8x, but, 12x and sometimes after a good defrag on my system, even 16x can be achieved with my Taiyo Yudens~ good luck to you sigrun~

Found that I could select and burn at 8x as suggested, but only if I rip first to the HD and insert a blank before launching the chosen burn app. Thanks Ppower. If I rip & burn on the fly using DVD43 (preferred) that option isn't available with either Shrink or Recode2. Understand that this is a restriction of having only a single DVD reader/burner installed, and could presumably be overcome with installation of a second unit be it reader only, combo or burner. I have a couple of RPC1 Pioneer 103S slot drives sitting idle in other PCs, so I'll press one of them back into service as a reader which will alter the source -> destination detection and copy dynamics.

Also noticed that whilst DVD43 (love this app) invariably always works with DVDShrink with the exception of the few titles such as "The Forgotten" requiring the intervention of DVDdecrypter. OTOH Recode2 will occasionally baulk at a disk and report it still as protected when DVD43 has indicated it has cracked it and the same title/DVD burns without issue using Shrink.

A question which puzzles me though. When ripped to HD with apps other than DVDdecrypter, the VIDEO_TS directory contains a resultant 9 files. Whenever ripped with DVDdecrypter, it splits the DVD content into a directory containing 41 files. Why? Appreciate a pointer to an explanation of this, or an explanation if someone has the patience for what might seem like a superfluous question or one which has been answered a gazillion times. Ta. (pronounced Tar, Aussie slang for Thanks).